Remember

CHAPTER 3: Different Time, Same Old Stuff









Hermione didn’t find it any easier to socialize in the past than she did in the future. There were still the same cliques that permeated the halls of Hogwarts in her own time. The smart kids and the slackers. The popular crowd and the bullies, only they weren’t Slytherins, they were the Marauders. Then there were the outcasts which unfortunately seemed to be herself and Severus Snape.







She hadn’t been able to make friends at all in the week she had been trapped in the past. The girls in her house snickered and gossiped behind her back, ignoring her when she attempted to converse with them. The only person who showed any interest in her aside from making fun of her was Peter Pettigrew and the way he looked at her gave her the willies.







Hermione stepped out onto the grounds, eager to be free of the stifling confines of Gryffindor tower. She missed her friends, the easy comfort she found at school with them around. She was miserable and so very lonely in this place and time. She heard the sounds of giggling and chattering students behind her and slipped around the side of the castle towards the gardens.







She inhaled the crisp fall air deeply as she made her way along the pebbled footpath towards the low garden wall along the cliff side overlooking the Black Lake. She stared out at the smooth, mirrored surface and longed for home, for Harry and Ron. She wiped a wayward tear from her cheek with her gloved hand and sighed.







She heard a bird cawing and turned towards the forest. She saw him sitting near the end of the wall, bent over with his elbows resting on his knees and his nose pressed close to the book he held in his hands. Hermione smiled at this rather casual posture from the man who always held himself so rigidly.





He looked as lonely as she felt. Hermione felt sorry for him. She had heard the marauders talking about him, had heard Lily telling some of the other girls how she couldn’t stand being around him anymore, that his darkness terrified her. He had no one, just like her. She wondered if he would have become a different man had things been better for him at school, if someone had befriended him and shown him love, unconditionally.









She watched him thoughtfully for several long moments and then smiled. She walked over and sat beside him on the low wall. He didn’t say anything, just glanced askance at her and scooted down a ways. Hermione bit her lip and smiled, then followed.







“Hello, Severus, do you remember me?” She asked. He frowned and looked up.









“Difficult to forget a witch who falls through the ceiling from twenty years in the future.” He grouched, moving further down the wall and resuming his place in the book.







“What are you reading?” She asked, scooting closer once more to sit close to him.









“Potion Essays of the Masters…why are you talking to me?” He asked frustrated as he scooted further down the wall and the odd little witch followed him yet again.







“I don’t have any friends here.” She said, shrugging as she tried to look over his shoulder.







“If you’re after social advice you picked the wrong wizard.” He scoffed.







“No, I don’t much care for the people in my house to be honest, they are somewhat shallow. I thought maybe we could be friends.” She said, smiling at him. Severus blinked rapidly and scooted even further down the wall, unfortunately there was no more wall for him to scoot on and he fell onto the ground. “Oh! Are you alright?”









Severus looked up and frowned at the witch leaning over the edge of the wall trying to hold back her laughter.









“I’m fine.” He grouched. “Why are you bothering me?”









“I told you, I want to be friends.” She said, reaching down to grab his arm and help him up. He shrugged her off and straightened his robes.









“Are you insane? No one wants to be friends with me, I’m a dark wizard or haven’t you heard?” He scowled, dusting off the cover of his book.









“I wouldn’t say you are a dark wizard….well maybe in appearance….you have a fascination with the dark arts, who doesn’t? Everyone does to some degree…some can handle it, some can’t.” She shrugged. “I’m not going to hold it against you.”









Severus looked at her with a rather puzzled expression on his face before walking away from her. Unfortunately she followed.







“You are the oddest little witch I have ever met. Are you a glutton for punishment?” He asked, stopping on the edge of the forest and turning towards her. “I don’t need any friends, especially not a strange little Gryffindor from another time!”







“Please? I don’t really know anyone here and they are all so….simple minded. You are familiar to me….” She hesitated, Dumbledore told her not to reveal much about the future to anyone, but he assured her that when she left he would obliviate everyone’s memories of her.









“Are we friends where you come from?” He asked.









“No, you call me an insufferable little know it all and give me detention regularly. You also take house points from me every chance you get.” She said, watching him smirk slightly. She figured it didn’t matter, he already knew that in her time he was a professor.









“Then why are you so anxious to be my friend now if I am so horrible to you?” He asked.









“Because you look like you need it as much as I do.” She said softly. She tilted her head to the side and looked at him closely. He was so tall, so thin and pale, much the same as his future self. His long black hair was still kind of limp as it hung in his eyes. She pushed it back and he flinched.







“Why are you touching me?” He asked, his brow furrowed. “Do you make it a habit to invade my personal space?”







“No…I just wanted to see your face.” She said. He was handsome in an unconventional way; his pale, angular features fit him. The large, hooked nose and sharp cheekbones. The black eyes that saw everything. His mouth fascinated her, he never smiled, the closest he came was that smirk that would show itself, usually when he was amused at the misfortune of someone else.







“You are probably the only person in this school who does then.” He said, stepping back out of her reach.







“Please, can I keep you company?” She asked, watching his lips quirk when she pouted at him.









“Do I have a choice? If I say no you will just follow me anyhow.” He said.







“Probably.” She laughed.









Severus shook his head and took off walking with Hermione following closely behind him. She laughed softly when the wind caught his robes and they billowed out behind him.







“What are you laughing at?” He scowled at her over his shoulder.









“You…the way you walk and the way your robes billow out behind you…its familiar is all.” She said, catching up to him so that she was walking beside him. She noticed that he kept his head tucked as he walked, looking at the ground with his book braced to his chest. No doubt a defense mechanism.









She understood why when she heard the chuckling from behind them. Severus kept on walking when she stopped. She saw the sign stuck to the back of Severus’s robes that said hex me and frowned. She turned around and saw Pettigrew laughing with some other Gryffindor students and she felt her ire begin to rise. She withdrew her wand and with a simple swish the sign found its way from Severus to the back of Peter Pettigrew.









Severus noticed the odd little witch was no longer beside him and he stopped and turned back. She was standing there, her arms crossed as she watched Pettigrew walking across the grounds, or attempting to at least, while students cast Bat Bogeys and tripping hexes his direction.









“What is that all about?” He asked her, noting the sign on Peter’s back. “He put that on my robes didn’t he?”







“He misplaced his sign; I just gave it back to its rightful owner.” She said, watching the little troll get a taste of his own medicine. Severus wanted to laugh, the little witch had come to his defense and protected him, and no one had done that in a very long time. He glanced over at her and narrowed his eyes.







She wasn’t exactly a beauty. Her hair was a disaster, the curls were frizzy and all over the place. She was petite and very curvy and her eyes were incredible. They were the color of fine whiskey and they seemed to belong to someone far older than her. She had a pretty mouth, her lips were pink, plump and pillowy. She was chewing on the lower one and they were becoming chapped from the annoying habit.







Severus reached into his pocket and withdrew a small pot of lip balm. He used his wand to duplicate it and handed it to her.





“Here, use this.” He said gruffly as he shoved the pot into her hand.







“What is it?” She asked, unscrewing the lid and sniffing the creamy substance.







“Lip balm, I created it, it will heal your chapped lips. You shouldn’t bite them like you do.” He said. Hermione smiled and dabbed some of the minty cream on her lips.







“Thank you, Severus.” She said, feeling the slight tingle as he healing potion in the cream began to fix the damage. He nodded curtly and turned on his heal to head back into the castle, smirking softly when he heard her following him. Whether he wanted her or not it seemed the little witch was determined to be his friend.